Debbie

When I first seen Debbie Allen, I thought that she was a wonderful dancers. I want to be like her when I was younger, the way she put feeling into her dance was so powerful. I remember seen her on T.V. acting I was so shocked that she was very good, it was like whatever she was acting it was like it was so real. Some people you can tale that he or she was acting, but not her. I like Debbie Allen a lot she is one in a million.

As a child Debbie, her older brother Andrew (called Tex) and older sister Phylicia lived in Mexico to escape US racism. Their mother Vivian Ayers decided to live there to give the Allen children a brief experience of not having to endure the chronic racism and segregation that was typical of Texas during the 1950s. From this, Debbie and Phylicia are fluent in Spanish.

Debbie graduated from Jack Yates Senior High School in Houston, TX in 1967. She graduated cum laude from Howard University in 1971 with a BFA in Classical Greek Literature, Speech, and Theater from Howard University. She used her experiences from attending Historically Black College Howard to inform her production and direction of the TV show “A Different World” (1987).

Although her parents divorced, Debbie remained extremely close to her father Arthur Allen, until his death. With Phylicia she has production company “D.A.D.” which stood for “Doctor Allen’s Daughters”. Her Pulitzer-nominated poet mother Vivian is, the artistic and free spirit that has influenced and encouraged the remarkable creativity that so marks Allen as a performer.

Her husband, Norman Nixon, is a former NBA player with the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.

Received an Honorary doctorate from The North Carolina School of the Arts, the same institution that denied her admittance to its dance department when she was sixteen years old; she was told then that she had the wrong type of body for dance.

Has twice been nominated for Tony Awards: in 1980, as Best Actress (Featured Role -Musical) for a revival of “West Side Story,” and in 1986, as Best Actress (Musical) for playing the title character in a revival of Bob Fosse‘s “Sweet Charity.”

Received a Drama Desk Award in 1979.

Her most notable role to date, that of “Lydia Grant” on the TV Series “Fame” (1982), earned her three Emmy Nominations and one Golden Globe.

Founder of the Debbie Allen Dance Institute in Culver City, CA in 2000.

Choreographed five Academy Award shows.

Her father passed away ten days after he accompanied her to the Emmy Awards Ceremony in which she won for Best Choreography for “Fame”(1982).

Her daughter, Vivian Nixon, is in the lead role of the Broadway musical “Hot Feet”. Vivian was classically trained at Washington D.C.’s Kirov Academy of Ballet and at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Daughter Vivian Nixon followed in Debbie’s footsteps by playing Debbie’s “Anita” role in a 2006 revival of the musical The Making of ‘West Side Story’ (1985) (TV). Debbie returned to her hometown of Houston to see her daughter perform.

Her mother Dr Vivian Elizabeth Ayers attended Brainerd Institute, Barber Scotia College and Bennett College. Vivian was the first poet in the state of Texas to receive the Pulitzer Prize Award nomination in 1952. Vivian was often called the “Poet Laureate of Texas.” In the late 50’s, her poetry, “Hawk,” attracted the attention of NASA and for twenty years was the only poetry celebrated by NASA. She worked as an apprentice librarian at the Fondren Library of Rice University and was accorded faculty status in 1965, becoming the first African American to be so qualified. During her years at Rice, she organized and published The Adept Quarterly, an important contribution to the small publications movement of the time.

In 1972, her mom Vivian’s work, “Workshops in Open Fields,” was hailed and recommended to the nation as a “prototype of grass roots programming” by the director of NEA. Vivian established the Adept New American Museum–a museum for art and history of the American Southwest; which features “Juneteenth” Black Cowboys, American Indian Sand Painting, seminars on the Emancipation Proclamation and Mayan studies– in Mt Vernon NY. She is known as a leader in the arts community in New York area.

Is one of three people (Gene Anthony Ray, and Lee Curreri) to appear in both Fame the Movie (1980) and the TV series.

She studied drama at the HB Studio in Greenwich Village in New York City.

It’s the only person who appears in Fame the movie (1980), Fame (TV series) and Fama (1990).

Personal Quotes

[on working with rapper Malicious Jynx (2005)] There is just something about him, he is so talented and so gifted, so flamboyant and so charismatic. He doesn’t deserve the harsh criticism he receives. Anyone who listens to his albums with their hearts and their ears will see his love, and his warmth. He is such a lovely young man and I love him for that. He gets negative publicity but people need to know the real person that’s inside of him.